Tuesday, February 19, 2013

What journalists mean when fending off
PR approaches

A while back we posted an item about the buzzwords that public relations people use but which journalists hate. So it seems only fair to report some of the lines that journalists use to fend off public relations people. These from British P.R. firm 10 Yetis:

Said by a journalist, to a PR person, with translation:
  • "I've put it up to the editor, so it's out of my hands." Translation - "I haven't got the heart to tell you that the story is sh*t and won't get coverage. Anywhere, in fact."
  • "The sub editors must have taken the client mention out, sorry!" Translation - "There was no way your client was ever getting a mention."
  • "Can I have it exclusively? We might run it then." Translation - "We probably won't run it, but we don't want anyone else to either. Plus, just in case we do decide to use it, we don't want other papers to have it."
  • "Sounds good. Send it to < insert generic editorial email address here > and if someone likes it, they'll get back to you." Translation - "It doesn't sound good and I want to get you off the phone right now. Send it to this generic email address that nobody monitors and it'll be completely ignored."
  • "It's not one for me, but send it on to Brian - he loves stories like this." Translation - "I wouldn't run this in a million years and neither would Brian. Send it to him though, because he's possibly the most evil journalist in the land and I want to have a bit of a giggle about the fact he'll probably give you an earful of abuse."
  • "Sure, I can make that meeting/event." Translation - "I almost certainly can't make it. Tell your client I'm coming though, just to get their hopes up."
  • "We might do something with that release, yeah."  Translation - "We probably, definitely, might not be using that release."
[Thanks to Axegrinder at Press Gazette.]

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